1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mobile radio communications systems and in particular cellular telephone systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing greetings to mobile radio subscribers having services based on subscriber location.
2. Description of Related Art
While the present invention has application in mobile radio communications systems, such as, for example, Mobitex, CDPD, cellular systems and mobile satellite systems, the present invention is described throughout the disclosure in respect of cellular telecommunication systems.
The nature of the cellular telephone systems, wherein system users have little or no geographical restrictions on the locations from which they may place or receive calls, makes the determination of what services are available to the subscriber in different locations a more important feature. Services offered in a cellular system vary based on services already provided on wire-line telephone networks and also on factors such as which of several available cellular service providers carry the call and whether the subscriber is roaming outside its own service area. Because the subscriber is generally unaware of how the foregoing factors affect the instantaneous services available for each call, it is unlikely that the subscriber can make anything more than a guess as to the services available for the call.
As discussed in TDMA FORUM, "Implementation Guide: Non-Public Mode Operation and Selection in IS-136 Compliant Mobile Stations", dated Mar. 9, 1995 and herein incorporated by reference, there are currently steps being taken in the cellular industry to provide alpha numeric tags or greetings to a subscriber in a cellular telephone system. The greeting is an optional feature that allows a subscriber to receive an alphanumeric message identifying a service provided such as, for example, service zone identification and charging information. The greeting service is independent of tone notification.
There is a new provision proposed for location based services in cellular telecommunication systems wherein different services are provided to the subscriber depending on the location of the subscriber within the cellular telephone communications system. The location based services are provided by storing in the user's profile, within a home location register for the cellular telephone system, several service profiles for the user where each service profile is defined for a zone location where the user is located. While location based services forms no part of the present invention, the use of location based services increases the importance of the subscriber being made aware of the services associated with his or her present location within the cellular telecommunications system. While proposals have been made to transmit location based information to subscribers using short message services (SMS) each time the subscriber registers with a new service area, i.e. a service area where the subscriber obtains a different set of services based on the user profile for that area, this requires the telecommunications system in the switch or the home location register to maintain a slogan or text that is transmitted over the air interface to the subscriber each time he registers in a new service area. These greetings and slogans are lengthy messages which significantly increase the traffic over the air interface.
There is a need for a more efficient way to update the subscriber of the services available to the subscriber in that location and reduce the signaling load on the air interface.